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Dilwara Singh And Ors. v. The State Of Bihar And Ors.
Structured Summary of the Provided Opinion
Factual and Procedural Background
The petitioners are owners/operators of transport vehicles plying for hire or reward on routes in the State of Bihar, holding permits granted by the East Bihar Regional Transport Authority (respondent No. 3) at Bhagalpur. On 7 June 1967 the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation prepared a scheme under Section 68-C of the Motor Vehicles Act. The scheme was published in the Bihar Gazette on 26 July 1967.
Operators across Bihar filed several objections to the scheme. Hearings on those objections took place on 18 October 1967 and 24 October 1967. The petitioners alleged the hearing had not concluded on 24 October and that the Transport Minister left office on 25 January 1968 without communicating any final order. A new Ministry issued fresh notices (including a notice dated 4 March 1968) fixing a hearing for 30 March 1968, but that Ministry fell on 28 March 1968 and a press note announced postponement. Despite the petitioners' contention that objections were not finally disposed of, the scheme was published in the Extraordinary issue of the Bihar Gazette dated 28 May 1969.
The State of Bihar (respondent No. 1) and the Corporation filed counter-affidavits denying the petitioners' assertions, stating that the hearing had concluded on 24 October 1967, that orders were reserved, and that the Transport Minister passed final orders on 18 January 1968 (Annexure 7). The State and Corporation maintained the Minister's order was judicial and final and that subsequent notices were ultra vires. The chronology also included interlocutory litigation by other operator groups: Hazaribagh operators' suit (Title Suit No. 136 of 1968) with an injunction later vacated on 24 May 1969; Muzaffarpur operators' suit (Title Suit No. 68 of 1969) with an ad interim injunction vacated on 19 July 1969. The present writ application by Bhagalpur operators was filed and admitted on 28 July 1969, but no stay was granted.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the hearing on objections to the draft scheme (which began on 18 October 1967) had been conclusively concluded on 24 October 1967, such that the Transport Minister had jurisdiction to pass the final order on 18 January 1968.
- Whether the order dated 18 January 1968 could become final or be effective without being communicated to the petitioners (i.e., whether communication of the Minister's order to objectors was required).
- Whether a successor Transport Minister had power to rehear or review the earlier judicial order disposing of objections, and whether issuance of notices by a successor Minister created a binding right to rehearing preventing publication of the scheme.
Arguments of the Parties
Petitioners' Arguments
- The hearing that commenced on 18 October 1967 had not concluded on 24 October 1967; therefore the Transport Minister lacked jurisdiction to pass the final order on 18 January 1968.
- The 18 January 1968 order could not become final or effective unless it was communicated to the petitioners, relying on the Supreme Court decision in Bachhittar Singh v. State of Punjab (AIR 1963 SC 395).
- Once a successor Transport Minister decided to rehear the matter (by issuing notices), the State could not abandon the rehearing and proceed to publish the scheme on the basis of the earlier order; the petitioners were entitled to reconsideration/rehearing in accordance with those notices.
Respondents' (State and Corporation) Arguments
- The hearing had in fact concluded on 24 October 1967; the Transport Minister reserved orders and passed the final order on 18 January 1968 (Annexure 7).
- The order of 18 January 1968 was judicial in nature; once made it could not be reviewed by a successor Transport Minister. Notices issued subsequently (Annexures 4 and 5) were ultra vires and illegal.
- The petitioners had knowledge of the order; there was no requirement that the Minister's order be separately communicated to objectors before the scheme could be finalized by publication in the Gazette.
- Interlocutory litigation in other districts (Hazaribagh and Muzaffarpur) temporarily affected publication timing; once injunctions were vacated, publication proceeded on 28 May 1969. The present writ application did not carry a stay preventing publication.
Table of Precedents Cited
| Precedent | Rule or Principle Cited For | Application by the Court |
|---|---|---|
| Bachhittar Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1963 SC 395 | Authority for the proposition that certain administrative/judicial orders may not be effective until communicated to affected parties (as relied upon by petitioners). | The court distinguished the Bachhittar Singh case, holding that the order there was of a different kind. The court concluded the statutory scheme under Chapter IVA (Sections 68C and 68D) contemplates finality of the scheme upon publication in the official Gazette, and there is no law requiring communication of the State Government's order approving or modifying the scheme to objectors before publication. |
| Nehru Motor Transport Co-op. Society Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1963 SC 1098 | Authority discussing the nature of approval under the statute: that the draft scheme must be considered as a whole and that the State's approval is judicial in character; also discussion on review and finality. | The court relied on Wanchoo, J.'s observations in this case to characterize the Transport Minister's order as judicial. This supported the conclusion that a successor Minister could not properly review or set aside the earlier judicial order and that the decision to abandon a rehearing would not strip the earlier order of its finality. |
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The court proceeded in a stepwise manner addressing the petitioners' three principal contentions:
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Whether the hearing had concluded (First contention):
The court examined the Minister's order (Annexure 7) which itself stated the hearing commenced on 18 October 1967, was adjourned with the consent of all parties to 24 October 1967, and was concluded on that date with orders being reserved. The court found the petitioners' allegation that the hearing was not concluded to be "obviously wrong" and held that the hearing had concluded on 24 October 1967 and the Transport Minister passed final orders on 18 January 1968. The court also noted the recital in the 4 March 1968 notice but treated it as consistent with the Minister's prior final order rather than undermining it.
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Whether communication of the 18 January 1968 order was required (Second contention):
The petitioners relied on Bachhittar Singh (AIR 1963 SC 395) to argue that the order needed communication to be effective. The court distinguished that decision, observing the kind of order in Bachhittar Singh differed from the orders under Chapter IVA of the Motor Vehicles Act (Sections 68C and 68D). Under the statute after objections are heard the State Government must approve or modify the scheme by order, but the scheme becomes final when published in the official Gazette. The court concluded there is no statutory requirement that the State Government's order approving/modifying the scheme be communicated to objectors or the Corporation before publication. The court also observed the Corporation's counter-affidavit facts lent some support to the contention that petitioners had knowledge of the order.
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Whether the successor Minister could rehear/review or whether issuance of notices compelled rehearing (Third contention):
The court identified the State Government's approval/modification as judicial in nature, relying on the Nehru Motor Transport precedent and Wanchoo, J.'s observations. On that basis it concluded two alternative grounds for rejecting the petitioners' third contention: (a) the successor Transport Minister had no power to review the judicial order disposing of objections; and (b) even if a power of rehearing/reconsideration existed, the mere issuance of notices did not confer upon objectors a vested right to have the matter reheard — the State could decide to drop the rehearing and proceed with publication, and such abandonment would not deprive the earlier order of finality. Consequently, the court found no basis to declare the scheme invalid on the ground that petitioners were not afforded a rehearing pursuant to the notices.
Holding and Implications
APPLICATION DISMISSED WITH COSTS
The court dismissed the writ application for the reasons stated in its analysis. The direct consequences ordered by the court were that the application fails and is dismissed with costs; the hearing fee was assessed at Rs. 100/- (one hundred) to be paid to respondent No. 1.
Implications: The decision upholds the validity of the publication of the scheme in the Bihar Gazette dated 28 May 1969, insofar as the court found that (a) the objections hearing had been concluded and the Transport Minister's order of 18 January 1968 was valid, (b) no statutory requirement existed for separate communication of that order before Gazette publication, and (c) a successor Minister could not nullify that final judicial order by mere issuance of notices or by attempting rehearing which the State later abandoned. The opinion does not purport to set a broader new legal doctrine beyond its application to these facts and the statutory scheme; it applies existing principles and precedents to resolve the dispute between these parties.
Note: This summary is limited strictly to the information contained in the provided opinion text and does not add factual or legal material beyond that source.
ORDER
1. The petitioners in this writ application are owners of transport vehicles which they ply for hire or reward on routes in the State of Bihar.
They are the operators who got their permits from the East Bihar Regional Transport Authority (respondent No. 3) at Bhagalpur. On the 7th June, 1967, by resolution No. 3541, the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation, hereinafter called 'the Corporation', prepared a scheme under Section 68-C of the Motor Vehicles Act, hereinafter called 'the Act'. The said scheme was published in the Bihar Gazette on the 26th July, 1967. Several objections were filed to that scheme by operators throughout Bihar plying their vehicles op grant of permits by the different Regional Transport Authorities. The objections were heard on the 18th of October, 1967 as also on the 24th October, 1967. According to the petitioner's case, the hearing had not concluded, and the Transport Minister, who was authorised to hear the objections on behalf of the State Government, went out of office on the 25th January, 1968. No information, according to the case of the petitioners, was given to them of any order having been passed by him. A new Ministry was formed on the 28th January, 1968, and under the orders of the new Transport Minister fresh notices were issued to the objectors; a copy of such notice dated 4-3-1968 is Annexure 4 to the writ application. The matter was to be heard on the 30th March, 1968. This new Ministry also fell on the 28th March, 1968. A Press note was issued on that date that the date fixed for hearing the objections on the 30th March. 1968 by the Minister (Transport) against the scheme of the Corporation published in the Bihar Gazette dated the 26th July, 1967, for nationalisation of the bus routes was postponed and that the next date of hearing would be published, when fixed, in a Press note. The petitioner's case further is that without fixing the next date of hearing and without concluding the hearing which commenced on the 18th October, 1967, the scheme was published in the Extraordinary issue of the Bihar Gazette dated the 28th May, 1969. Their grievance is that the scheme so published Is invalid in law as it has been published without finalising the objections raised by the petitioners.
2. The State of Bihar is respondent No. 1 in this writ application. Both the Corporation and the State have filed their counter-affidavits. Both of them deny the assertion of the petitioners that the hearing had not concluded on the 24th October, 1967. They say that the hearing had been concluded on that date and orders were reserved by the then Transport Minister. He passed the final orders on the 18th January. 1968. A copy of this order has also been annexed by the petitioners as Annexure 7 to the writ application. The State Government examined the matter after the fall of the second Ministry and came to the conclusion that the scheme had to be published as had been directed by the then Transport Minister in his order dated the 18th January, 1968. Nothing more was to be done, and, the order of the Transport Minister being of a judicial nature, it could not be reviewed by the successive" Transport Minister of the second Ministry and all the notices (Annexures 4 and 5) were ultra vires and illegal. The Corporation's stand also is that the petitioners had knowledge of the order and the operators of the various regions in the State of Bihar were acting in concert. When the scheme was about to be published, the operators of the Hazaribagh district filed Title Suit No. 136 of 1968 in the court of the Subordinate Judge at Hazaribagh on the 21st November, 1968. An injunction order was obtained on that very date which was made absolute bv the trial court on the 9th January, 1969; but the District Judge vacated the injunction order on the 24th May, 1969, and then only this scheme could be published on the 28th May, 1969. Thereafter, Muzaf-farpur operators filed Title Suit No. 68 of 1969 in Muzaffarpur court on the 28th May, 1969 and obtained an ad interim order of injunction on the 30th May, 1969. This ad interim order of injunction was vacated on the 19th July, 1969; and, six days thereafter the Bhagalpur operators filed the present writ application which was admitted on the 28th July. 1969; but no stay was granted.
3. The first question which has been pressed by learned Counsel for the petitioner is that the hearing of the objections, which had commenced on the 18th October, 1967, had not concluded on the 24th October, 1967; and, without concluding the hearing the then Transport Minister had no jurisdiction to pass an order on the 18th January, 1968, disposing of the objections in the manner he did, and that was the reason that the successor Transport Minister had decided to proceed with the hearing and conclude it. We do not feel persuaded to accept this argument as correct. It is obviously wrong. It is difficult to accept that the previous Transport Minister would have passed the order contained in Annexure 7 without concluding the hearing. In the very first paragraph of the order, it is mentioned that the hearing commenced on the 18th October, 1967, but it was not concluded on that date, and, hence, with the consent of all the parties it was adjourned to the 24th October, 1967, and, on that date the hearing was concluded and order was reserved. The statement in paragraph 9 of the show cause petition filed by the Corporation is amply supported by the order contained in Annexure 7. The allegations of the petitioners in paragraph 12 of the petition have been controverted in that paragraph of the show cause petition. Similar is the stand taken on behalf of the State of Bihar. In our opinion, therefore, the first point fails. It has got to be held that the hearing had concluded on the 24th October, 1967, and thereupon, the previous Transport Minister had passed the final order contained in Annexure 7 on the 18th January, 1968. This is further supported by the notice dated the 4th March, 1968 (Annexure 4). This notice recites that the then Transport Minister had decided to reconsider the matter and, for that purpose, had fixed the 30th of March, 1968, as the date of hearing. The language used in Hindi is as under:
"Aapaki aapatti par punah vichar karne ke live sunwayi ki tithi 30-3-1968 ko 11 baje din me nishchit ki hai."
4. The second contention put forward on behalf of the petitioners is that the order dated the 18th January, 1968, could not become final unless it was communicated to the petitioners. In support of this contention, reliance has been placed on a decision of the Supreme Court in Bachhittar Singh v. State of Punjab AIR 1963 SC 395. In my opinion, there is no substance in this argument. The order, which was held to be not effective without communication in the case before the Supreme Court, was entirely of a different kind. Under Chapter IVA of the Act wherein occur Sections 68C and 68D. after hearing the objections the State Government have to approve or modify the scheme. This must be by an order. The scheme, when it is approved, becomes final only when it is published in the official gazette. A distinction, therefore, must be maintained between the final order of the State Government under Sub-section (2) of Section 68D and the finality of the scheme under Sub-section (3). There is no law that the order approving or modifying the scheme has got to be communicated either to the objectors or to the Corporation. This is apart from the fact that the various facts mentioned in the counter-affidavit of the Corporation lend some support to the contention put forward on its behalf that the petitioners had knowledge of the order. But that apart, we do not think that the order dated the 18th January, 1968, required communication to the petitioners before it could be adopted as a final scheme on publication of the scheme in the Bihar Gazette.
5. The third contention put forward on behalf of the petitioners is that once the successor Transport Minister had decided to rehear the matter, even assuming that it was a case of rehearing, the State Government eventually could not drop the idea of rehearing and publish the scheme on the basis of the order dated the 18th January, 1968. I have no difficulty in rejecting this argument also, as, in my opinion, it does not stand scrutiny. Wanchoo, J., as he then was, delivering the judgment on behalf of the Court in the case of Nehru Motor Transport Co-op. Society Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan AIR 1963 SC 1098 has said at page 1100, column 1, in paragraph 6 :
"There is no doubt that a draft scheme has to be considered as a whole and all objections to it have to be decided before it can be approved by the State Government or by the officer appointed in that behalf and the Act does not envisage approving of a part of the scheme once and putting it into effect and leaving another part unap-proved and left over for enforcement later. It is also true that the Act does not provide for review of an approval once given by the Legal Remembrancer, though he may be entitled to correct any clerical mistakes or inadvertent slips that may have crept in his order. It is also true that the Legal Remembrancer when considering the objections has to exercise his own judgment subject to any directions that the High Court might give on questions of law relating to a particular draft-scheme. But we do not think that this is a case where the draft-scheme has been approved in part and another part of it has been left unapproved to be taken up later; nor is this a case where the Legal Remembrancer abdicated his own judgment or reviewed his earlier decision when he proceeded to reconsider the matter after the High Court had set aside the scheme as published under Section 68D(3) of the Act on June 16, 1962."
The said observation clearly Indicates that the nature of the order passed by the State Government, and in this case the Transport Minister on behalf of the State Government, is judicial. The objections are dealt with and thereafter the scheme prepared by the Corporation is either approved or modified. If such an order was a judicial order. then the third contention put forward on behalf of the petitioner has got to be rejected on two grounds. Firstly, the successor Transport Minister had no power to review such an order or to reconsider the objections and pass another order in respect of the scheme. Secondly, even assuming that he had such a power, a mere issuance of notices to the objectors that the matter will be reconsidered did not confer any right upon them to have the matter reconsidered or to have the matter reheard if the State Government acting through the successor Transport Minister decided to rehear the matter, they had equally a right to drop their decision of rehearing. The effect of dropping their decision to rehear the matter would be that the order of the Transport Minister passed on the 18th January, 1968 did not lose its finality even though assuming, although not admitting, that it could be reviewed by a successor Transport Minister. In either view of the matter, we fail to understand how the scheme published in the Bihar Gazette dated the 28th May, 1969, can be declared to be invalid on the ground that the petitioners did not get a chance of reconsideration and rehearing of the matter in pursuance of the notices (Annexures 4 and 5).
6. For the reasons stated above, the application fails and is dismissed with costs; hearing fee is assessed at Rs. 100/- (one hundred) only payable to respondent No. 1.
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